Dick Falkenbury grew up and spent most of his life in the Roosevelt area of Seattle. He began driving cabs in 1978, later becoming a tour driver and tour bus driver in 1992. In 1996, having worked in many liberal political campaigns in the Seattle area, Falkenbury wrote and led an initiative effort to build a monorail throughout Seattle.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

This and That, Then and Now

At the Seahawk game the other Sunday, a Seattle police officer saw some lunkhead toss a beer cup on the ground. She asked that the litterer to put it in a nearby trash can.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The boor was an off-duty Bellevue cop with some buddies, out for a good time, a football game and maybe a few more brewskies than were absolutely necessary. Instead of picking up the discarded container, the Bellevue cops began to taunt the Seattle police officer. The ‘taunting’ was such the officer felt compelled to call for back-up. The Bellevue bunch continued the taunting when the other officer showed.

The Seattle Times editorilized that “…it’s a problem when off-duty officers harass a police officer on duty.”

Ya think?

What the real problem is, the Seattle police officer’s felt that off-duty officers, from any police department, could get away with this behavior. If you or I ‘taunted’ a Seattle police officer, I doubt very much if we could walk away from it. Nor should we. Police officers shouldn’t have one set of rules for the rest of us and another set of rules for follow officers.

Rather than investigating the Bellevue officers, someone should be looking into the failure of the Seattle police officers to enforce the rule of law, regardless of the offenders. Then, go after those bums from Bellevue.

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The Seattle Times had an OpEd piece by someone named Alaa Badr. Badr is an engineer and an activist with Islamic outreach program. He is an Egyptian-born American Muslim.

His piece in the newspaper is a call for dialogue and understanding. Fine, as far as it goes.

He states that “As an American citizen, who loves and understands our Constitution, I believe that freedom of speech was never inteded to intentionally promote bigotry. Should we, in the US, France or Denmark crack jokes about the Holocaust?” (He goes on to answer is own question with an emphatic ‘no’.)

The purpose of Freedom of Expression is not to express this or that, one view or another or even to corral the limits of good taste. Actually, we may ‘crack’ jokes about the Holocaust, as hurtful and shameful as that may be. The Freedom of Expression is not reserved for the acceptable. It is not the shield of the conventional. It’s purpose to allow the unacceptable, the repugnant and even the radical expression. Otherwise it is a hollow promise of no value.

Shortly after the adoption of the US Constitution and its Bill of Rights, some began to question the wisdom and teachings of Christianity. Where once the Bible was taken as literal truth by nearly everyone, people began to call all into question. The Freedom of Expression protected these people.

In the 1850′s, most of the people in the United States, north and south, believed that slavery was correct and proper. But there were people in the north loudly telling people to help slaves runaway and escape to Canada or other places. They were actively telling people to violate the laws of this country. They were right to do so. They were protected by the Freedom of Expression.

There were people in the 1960′s telling young people to resist the draft. They urged young men to refuse service in the military, to burn their draft cards and even to go to Canada and not be part of America’s military effort in Vietnam. I believe that they were correct to do so and I believe that their success directly led to the United States leaving that conflict. They operated under the shield of the Freedom of Expression.

Mr Alaa Badr concludes his piece with this sentence: “Freedom of Speech is a blessing that we must use responsibility.”

Mr. Badr, you love our Constitution and the freedom it gives us, but there is no requirement that Freedom of Expression be used ‘responsibly’. There is no limit of pure expression. I am sorry to say that includes hateful words, harsh carricture, and images which may deeply offend people of faith, of other beliefs and humans who live different ways of life.

If you believe in the protection of Freedom of Expression, you must allow expression which attacks, mocks, questions and even ridicules your core religous beliefs and values. You do not have to agree or even listen, but you must allow these expressions. You may express your opposition, but you must not try to stiffle or muffle their Freedom of Expression.

If Freedom of Expression cannot protect the ability to express radical, hurtful and even harmful expressions, it would mean nothing at all.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..